Emerson Hough (pronounced huff) should be remembered as one of the early twentieth century's most energetic, diversified, and prolific writers. From 1897, when at the age of forty he published his first major work, The Story of the Cowboy , until his death in 1923, he published thirty-four major works of fiction and nonfiction, dozens of articles, stories, poems, and plays. As a journalist, novelist, essayist, playwright, historian, polemicist, and conservationist, Hough used fact and fiction to capture the spirit of the American character, devoting special attention to the romantic, epic, individual, and regional triumphs of American heroes. He was a tireless writer, explorer, hunter, and adventurer who used his influence with midwestern and eastern publishers and politicians to protect our natural landscape and to promote Western American literature. At his death in 1923, just when he had finally achieved financial stability and national recognition (for the movie, The Covered Wagon, based...